Tuesday, February 24, 2015

We have a cocker spaniel that we saved from the doggie gallows about seven years ago. We figured
that we'd rescue some silly "Heintz 57" mutt and that would be just fine for me and my wife, who always wanted a dog. When we lived in Los Angeles, our yard was just too small to put a dog in. It would have been an incarceration even for a dog the size of a chihuahua. But now, living in the country, we had lots of room for a dog to be happy.

Much to our surprise, sitting there all primped up and sassy with those eyes that said, "They gonna kill me if you don't take me home, soon... and I got papers!" My wife was smitten. I don't know if it was the cute little blue ribbon tied into a bow around his neck or the sad, sad story the dog keeper at the pound spun to convince Therese to choose "Pierre!"

Oh brother!

Over the last couple of years, it has come to my attention that he really wants "my woman," the alpha female, all to himself. And, the only way to accomplish that before his doggie years catch up to him, is to knock off the alpha male. Case in point, he grabs my favorite chair when I get up for a beer, he hoards and hides the tv remote, he quickly jumps in bed next to the "babe" whenever I get up and she is still in bed, and he chews on my paint brushes and my Prismacolor art pencils whenever he can sneak into my studio. He practically knocks me over trying to beat me to door to get outside and is always under my feet whenever food is involved.

I believe, also, that he has the ability to read my lips or seems to have a sixth sense even though, he chooses to ignore thoughts I angrily vibe to him. He's the complete embodiment of a "beelze-pup."

"Ya got nuthin' on me, dude!"

And, when he is disciplined for an occasional wrong doing, he doesn't send any contrite vibes my way. He just looks at me with disdain and contempt. It smells like retribution! Somehow, he will find a way to get back at me, usually, in the classic doggie way, on our carpet, and next to a favorite houseplant of mine.

Every now and then, he outdoes himself. Once, we put him in the washroom overnight to discipline him for house infractions, and in the morning, found he had shredded the Levolor blinds complete with tooth marks and puncture holes.

But, this time, he's gone to far.

For some strange reason, maybe because they distorted his night vision, he took his frustrations out on my prescribed reading glasses. They were chewed to bits with scratches and tooth marks on the lenses. Maybe, he thought they'd be cooler than they actually were, or maybe, he thought he could somehow mentally destroy me through some psychic laser beam conducted through the glasses. But probably, it was just payback for some derogatory comment or thought I had about him but didn't verbally express, but one which he picked up on as the thought bounced off some orbiting satellite and landed into his dome!

Be careful what, and how, you think!

Who knows what his reasoning was, but when I related the story to my animal loving, barrel racing, friend of mine, she spared no sympathy for me or my glasses.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Remember how, when you were a little kid, you'd have your milk and cookies before brushing your teeth and hopping into bed? Remember how you'd run out of milk before you'd finish your cookies, so you poured yourself another glass of milk, and proceed to devour your cookies, only to find that, now, there wasn't enough cookies to help you finish off your milk? Remember how this could continue ad infinitum unless your dad or mom put a stop to it and when they did you felt like the earth was gonna fall off its axis... or some other cosmic imbalance was gonna have you awake and worried all night?

Well, I just did that with peanut butter and jam on two rice cakes and a cup of coffee.